Trial By Fire
by ejosephinemachine
Summary: Marlene McKinnon. Fear and Admiration are two of the most common sentiments towards her, but there's a real girl behind all the anger and the frustration with the anti-muggle sentiment growing up both in and out of Hogwarts. Try as she might, she's involved, by her family and her House, she's involved. And she's going to fight.
1. A Toast to NEWT Beginnings

Marlene didn't like Slytherins.

If she had taken the time to really think about it, she would have been forced to admit that she didn't hate every Slytherin. Lots of them were okay, many of them were even nice, but every single person that she had been involved in a fight with was from there, and there was a certain strain of pure-blooded egomania that ran through the house.

She also wasn't a person to force honesty, especially from herself, so she was perfectly content with the thought that she really didn't like any Slytherins.

She walked down the corridor, almost daring someone to say something to her. She had just had a letter from home and it had left her feeling that familiar mix of guilt and resentment that so often led to her punching someone in the face. Her mum had written the week after she had returned to school and had asked her not to mention Hogwarts in her next letter home, as her brother had been feeling a bit isolated since her return to school, and the Knockturn Alley Incident. Her brother didn't go to the same school as her because, despite both having the same two, thoroughly magical parents, only Marlene had inherited the skill. Her brother went to the local school, something he had only done after a great deal of fighting, and which he had eventually settled into well. Marlene was the one that had to look at the people who thought her family lesser for her brother's place in it, she had to walk by them in corridors, partner them in classes, and eat across from them at dinner. Honestly, it was a wonder that she hadn't been in more fights that the already expansive number than she had. She was only walking down to breakfast, something that anyone else might have thought as a dull routine part of the day, but Marlene was always expecting the next insult to fly and so was always just a little tense. In the back of her mind, the memory of the Knockturn Alley Incident clung to her, refusing to be forgotten.

It had happened when they had taken a trip to Diagon Alley to get her school supplies. Her brother had wandered away for a bit and had taken a wrong turn onto the decidedly darker Knockturn Alley, and had ran into a group of Slytherin students who had immediately recognised him as a relation of the blonde haired, angry girl who was regularly getting into, and winning, fights with them. Marlene had found him before any words were thrown, but the damage had been done. The words the whole family had tried so hard to shield him from were hurled at him as if they were his name; he was a Squib, a filthy, useless, 'worse-than-Mudblood' Squib.

Martin hadn't liked the way she had handled the situation. He had informed her after, as he wiped blood from her nose, one of the Slytherins having gotten in at least one good punch, that she ought to have turned away, and just ignored them.

Turning away and just ignoring things had never, and would never be Marlene's preferred option.

"In any case, you shouldn't punch them? I might be a Squib, but you're not. You have a wand!"

"Yeah, but they're expecting the curse. None of those pure-bloods expect a right hook." She had elicited a small laugh out of him there and it made her smile. "… and don't call yourself that, you're not a Squib, you're a McKinnon, you're my brother, and you're ten times better than them, don't let them get to you!"

He gave her a funny look at that, a wistful, almost pitying sort of look.

"I don't. Marlene, it's not me that they're getting to. I'm not the one reacting, throwing punches and making enemies. You have to be careful; I'm not always going to be around to clean you up after."

"I don't need you to clean me up, and you've known me for long enough to realise that 'careful' is not a word that will ever be used to describe me!"

He pulled her along behind him as they headed back to safe territory, and found her parents, who had taken one look at Marlene's blood-speckled blouse and Martin's defeated look, and declared the trip over.

People often thought that Marlene spent her whole life looking for fights. She did attract an unprecedented number and it would have been hard for even the most innocent person to think that their frequency could be complete coincidence.

To be fair, it probably wasn't coincidence. Marlene, while not exactly looking for trouble, didn't go out of her way to avoid it. If someone insulted her or her family, or if she thought someone else was being picked on, she could be relied upon to get herself involved. It had become a common occurrence for her to be pulled away from someone only to look up and see the condemnation of Professor McGonagall, who would inevitably cart her off to her office, give a familiar speech about how she was bringing a bad name to Gryffindor house, that she understood the impulse but that if Marlene wanted to continue on and do well in life, she would need to learn more appropriate ways to deal with disagreements.

Marlene liked her way; it made things much clearer than they might otherwise be.

On this particular morning, she didn't see anyone who antagonised her enough to engage, and she reached the Great Hall without event. She made her way up the Gryffindor table, and found her friends, sitting silently as they yawned, rubbed their eyes and generally tried to get rid of the tiredness that was still sitting heavily over them.

"You look a right state, Gid! What happened?" She laughed, making sure to ruffle Gideon's hair in that particularly annoying way that she knew he hated. He didn't answer, except for a low grumble and muttering of insults. "Wow, that bad? Did Millie knock you back again?"

"No… she's just busy!" He had said that loud enough and, knowing she had hit a nerve, she backed off.

"So, Fabian, how was your night, do anything interesting?"

He seemed a little bemused.

"Not really, I was just doing homework, unfortunately. See, since this git was off getting dumped…" He gestured resentfully to Gideon. "I had to sit in the Common Room and focus on Potions. I hope you're happy!"

Gideon, it seemed, was not happy. He just stirred his porridge, looking forlorn.

"Unlucky!" Marlene commiserated. "but… lucky for me, because that should mean that you have the Potions homework finished?"

"No! I'm not letting you have it!"

"Be a mate!"

"No."

"Come on!"

She handed in her Potions homework with a smug smile at the slightly resentful looking Fabian. When she returned to her seat, he was still looking a little dazed.

"I'm not even sure how you talked me into that!"

"That would be my wonderful powers of persuasion at work there!"

Dory looked over at them and rolled her eyes.

"You do realise that he's going to read them and realise they are exact copies of one another."

"Please, you don't still think that Slughorn actually reads homework before he marks it, do you? Honestly, the marks in this class are given out based on how many bottles of elf wine and boxes of Honeydukes finest you hand in, not homework."

She dropped her voice as the stout professor stood up to begin the lesson, which was actually among Marlene's favourite classes.

Homework might not have been her priority but she always seemed to do well enough on class work and talent. She liked Potions, partly because of the increased likelihood of explosions and evacuation after someone's potion filled the air with choking smoke. Another part of why she liked Potions was the fact that it, though being undeniably a branch of magic, it was something that you didn't need to be powerfully magical to be good at. That was always intriguing because it still held that faint glimmer of potential, that maybe her brother could come into her world, could join in, if only in some limited aspect. She would go home every holiday, uncharacteristically eager to share what she had learned in classes, and she and Martin would pore over the textbooks, learning the ingredients, the mixtures, the requirements of brewing. She would be on hand, but they had been able to have some limited success with brewing and that had only fuelled her interest in the subject.

They hadn't done it much recently, Martin was growing closer to the world of Muggles, understandably, but Marlene couldn't shake her liking for the subject. It held too much promise for her to treat it with the level of apathy that she tended to treat some other subjects.

Within ten minutes, she was starting to feel her traditional disinterest creep in. Sixth year was never going to be easy, she had expected the workload to increase, but this was ridiculous. It was only the second week of classes, and only the first day of that week, and already she was feeling slightly snowed under. Slughorn, the usually relaxed, easily distracted professor, was resisting the combined best efforts of the class to get him talking about some ex-pupil who had risen to great heights, thanks to a carefully considered introduction from the professor himself. Usually, he could be distracted by a gentle breeze and could be engaged in a monologue for entire classes at a time, but today there was a determined resolute in his gait as he walked around, from potion to potion, remarking cheerfully on their contents or offering suggestions for corrections to the desperate looking students.

Marlene's potion was coming along okay, and there was a bluish, pearly sheen to the liquid that was buzzling lazily above the flames. Next to her, Fabian was less successfully trying to contain the lurid bubblegum-pink liquid that seemed to be straining to escape the cauldron and was causing great tufts of hair to form on everything it touched, including the desk, and Fabian himself.

She tried to help the growing situation but Fabian seemed to be almost enjoying. He wasn't doing much to remedy it and in fact seemed to be throwing ingredients in at random, mixing violently and hoping for a change. By the time the class ended, Slughorn told Fabian not to bother trying to get it into a flask, simply to leave it for Slughorn to deal with later and Fabian cheerfully accepted the fact that he had gained nothing from the class.

"Do you even try?" Dory chided him as they left, and Gideon was trying to quieten his laughter at the bright green patches of hair that had sprouted on the parts of his brother's skin that had been touched by the potion.

"I did, Dory, I tried for so long, and then I realised that I've always been far more talented at causing problems than any of this nonsense!"

"What you call nonsense, I call academics!" Dory tried to look disapproving, but it would have taken a very serious person not to find the green, hairy face of Fabian Prewett at least a little amusing at that moment.

The group made their slow progress through the halls to the next class. This time, there would be none of the inattentiveness of other classes, for any of them. This was perhaps their favourite class, and the one that they all thought was the most important.

As they took their usual seats in the familiar Defence against the Dark Arts classroom, they had their wands and books laid out on the desk, prepared for both the exciting or the dull teacher that was about to enter the classroom and begin their new year of teaching. Their last professor, an elderly, slightly wandered-looking man with a mind sharper than most of theirs, called Professor Harrigan. He had resigned at the end of term, health problems catching up with him. He was now, according to his great-niece, a third year Hufflepuff who had relished being related to someone, even a professor, so well-liked, living in his seaside home in Dorset. Everyone in the school was glad he was well, Dorset being an undeniably better place to rest than Hogwarts, but there was now that familiar feeling of worry that the replacement would be inept, or worse, uninteresting.

When the professor entered through the door near the front of the class, every student was watching with deep interest. Marlene imagined that it must have been quite an intimidating scene to come across on your first week at a new job, and she could bet that every class he had taught before had given him much the same welcome.

He had missed the first week, which only added to the mystery, and their classes had been led by whatever professors had time free for the hour. That had meant, since none of the professors had taught a Defence against the Dark Arts class, that they had done a significant amount of reading and theoretical work, and now they were praying that their new teacher would be the sort who supported teaching them practically.

As Marlene threw her first spell at Dory, who immediately blocked it, she realised that probably this was going to be quite a good year. The professor had given her this impression when he first walked in and straight away ordered them to have their wands ready and then had cleared the desks to one side of the room with a flick of his wand. Then he had started to write instructions on the board, wand movements and the incantation and had let them begin to practice.

It was a good lesson. Fabian seemed to be moulting, shedding more green hairs every moment, and by the time the lesson ended his hair was completely ginger again and his skin clear. Besides that, Marlene had managed to cast both disarming and stunning spells almost non-verbally. She was muttering the words under her breath, so it wasn't technically non-verbal, but she hadn't gotten caught doing it, so that was as much a success as could be expected on a Monday morning, only one week into classes.

Later on, she was forced to come to the realisation that it was likely going to be a very long, very difficult year. She had just packed away the scrolls of parchment on which she had taken an unreasonable amount of notes for Transfiguration, where they joined similarly extensive amounts of writing for each class of the day. She was starting to wonder if she was going to need a bigger bag to carry all her notes.

Even the twins were looking a bit startled, perhaps realising that their usual casual attitude wasn't quite going to work when it came to N.E. . They might actually have to put in some effort.


	2. What's a Frisbee Between Friends?

"I'm bored." Marlene whined, about ten minutes after they had sat down in the Common Room to attempt the homework that had been piled on them that day. She had been watching as a group of first years, who had somehow managed to get the seats right by the fire, loudly argued over which one of them had eaten the worst flavour of Bertie Bott's jelly beans. The sight of people who didn't have mountains of homework to work through was making her ridiculously jealous, and the last thing she wanted to do was sit here and be the sort of boring sixth year N.E.W.T. students that she had laughed at when she was a first year herself.

One thing no one could ever say about Marlene McKinnon was that she was boring. She was stubborn, obtuse and bad-tempered, perhaps, but never boring.

Marlene had always thought that she was an honest person. She had a tendency to perhaps be a little overly-honest, to the point where it could hurt people. She never went out of her way to hurt anyone, but she would if she had to, and she didn't like the feeling that holding something back gave her.

This honest tendency had gotten her into trouble before, frequently, and she had to admit that it had somewhat contributed to the situation she now found herself in.

It had started earlier that evening, with the familiar feeling of boredom that so often came right before disaster. She had been sitting in the common room, watching her friends be productive. They were all flipping through their books and scribbling down notes, and she hated them for it. Even Fabian, who was usually the one convincing her to abandon homework, was working hard and wasn't looking up from his page so she couldn't even silently begin to convince him to go set something on fire.

The first years had long since left their spot by the fire, but she hadn't seen them leave. There was now absolutely no one interesting in the room to distract her and yet she was still feeling… distracted.

"Can we be done yet?"

It was Gideon that answered her, not even looking up from his piece of parchment.

"Nope. I'm nowhere near finished. You can, if you like, though." He finally glanced in her direction. "But if you're going up to bed, can you leave your books, I think I might need that one."

She groaned and whined at them for a little while longer, but when she received only stubborn silence and the scratching of quills as a response, she huffed and stood up. She was bored and, for someone as impulsive as Marlene, bored was dangerous.

"I'm going out."

"What? Where are you going?" Dory gave her the same half-listening glance that Gideon had, making her even more annoyed.

"Dunno, I think if I stay here with you, I might just pass out from boredom. When did you lot get so dull?"

"It's sixth year, Mar. They're expecting a lot of us, we can't just make stuff up and chuck essays together at the last minute like we used to."

"Fabian! Don't tell me you believe that? You can't! Tell me you don't!"

Fabian shrugged, and looked a little doubtful, and she knew, from the slight wavering, that she had found her weak link.

"Kitchens?"

"No!"

"Cakes? And hot chocolate? And then running away from Zeller?"

"Marlene! Stop!"

"Fabian… two words… Fanged Frisbee."

She smiled brilliantly as she saw him look up. Gotcha!

The cake and hot chocolate portion of the evening had been accomplished, and now she and Fabian were sitting at the top of a staircase that was occasionally shifting around with the others, and using their wands to send the Frisbee flying at different things, the suits of armour firstly, several of which now bore teeth marks, and then paintings, the occupants of which, those that were still awake, were waving and gesturing, making faces at the Frisbee could never reach them.

"Fabian, are we getting old?" she wondered. The dullness of their evening and the fact that it had taken so long to convince one of her friends to even leave their homework was making her worry.

"Well, yes. Everyone is."

"Don't be smart, it doesn't suit you."

They laughed gently as the Frisbee spun over their heads.

"Really, I don't like how everything is getting so serious around here." She wasn't just talking about homework. When she had first came to Hogwarts, there had been only a few comments tossed around about Muggleborns and non-magic people, they had been used mostly as last responses in arguments. Still, as they had grown up, and moved through years, the inside of the school reflected a change on the outside, and there had been a sort of darkening of the relations between those who were highly thought-of – the purebloods, members of the twenty-eight families and those with more tenuous links to nobility – and those who were lesser – the muggleborn, muggles and Squibs. There had always, to Marlene's view, been a certain air of superiority about the Slytherins, which she would admit to being probably at least partially her own personal bias, but it had grown to a stage where it wasn't just people like Marlene who thought it, it was downright obvious. People were afraid, in the outside world it was getting dangerous to be overly proud of any connection to Muggles. The kidnapping of Althea Harrow had shaken even the determinedly-oblivious Daily Prophet and had made a lot of people wonder if the steady stream of disappearing Muggle advocates was really coincidence. It had stirred some into action and there was talk of the Ministry introducing some new Muggle Relations Act. Marlene had kept up with it in the papers and it was worryingly unclear whether it was going to be a crucial step towards minimising the anti-Muggle sentiment being stirred up in dark corners and alleyways, or a thinly-veiled appeasement attempt that would only drive a legal wedge between the communities where a social one already existed.

"I think we are getting old. We're properly ancient."

"Nah, McKinnon. We're not there yet. When we're in one of those paintings, maybe… but we're still young."

She shrugged, still feeling like she was far too old to still be in school. She caught the fanged Frisbee and chucked it away as hard as she could, managing as she did so not to get her hand caught and bitten.

She realised as the Frisbee battered into a painting of a group of knights who looked scandalised that she perhaps wasn't entirely mature just yet.

And that was when they heard a distant voice, but one that they both recognised.

"Peeves, you tell me where they are, these students you heard."

"RUN!" Fabian hissed, clambering up from his seat, trying not to overbalance as he pulled Marlene along after him.

"Do… you think… he's gone?" Marlene panted, trying not to look as out of breath as she felt, her side aching and her heart racing.

"Dunno… maybe. Shut up while I listen!" Fabian pressed his ear to the door of the cupboard into which they had crashed seconds before the caretaker came running around the corner after them. They had been slowed down by the Fat Friar who they had needed to hide from as he drifted through a wall and down the corridor right ahead of them. She waited, trying to breathe quieter but failing miserably.

"Shut it, wheezy!"

"I'm… trying! Bloody hell, you run fast!"

"It's all that sitting around on a broom playing Quidditch that does it! I'm quite the athlete!"

"Gideon can't run that fast, it's obviously just a personal gift."

"Tell Gid that, would you?" Fabian smiled triumphantly. "I think he's gone…"

He looked back around at where Marlene was finally recovering.

"Unless you think we should stay in here, for a bit, y'know… just to be safe."

Marlene rolled her eyes and laughed.

"I think it's safe to go. Out!" she shoved him and he shrugged.

"It's your loss, McKinnon."

"Oh, I'm cursing myself already."

The next morning, she was woken up by an impatient Dory who had apparently been trying to get Marlene up for fifteen frustrating minutes. She eventually nodded grumpily and rolled out of bed, not quite ready to be entirely upright. She wasn't sure why she was so tired, but she supposed that since she had been running about the castle with Fabian until only a few hours ago it made sense.

When she made it down to breakfast in the Great Hall, she noticed a marked difference in the attitudes of Fabian, who looked like Marlene felt, and Gideon, who seemed far more cheerful and rested.

"Alright, Mar?" Gideon smiled as she sat down. She nodded wearily and a yawn escaped her. "Busy night, was it? You know, Fabian's just the same."

Both Fabian and Marlene glared at him, and ignored the raised eyebrows and teasing tones of both Gideon and Dory as the morning wore on.

That afternoon, while enjoying one of her blessed free periods, she sat in a chair the Common Room, right by the window, trying desperately to think of what to say in her letter home. She knew that her mother didn't want her to mention anything on the subject of school, but given that she lived at school, that ruled quite a lot out.

Dear McKinnons,

How are we all? Hope everything is good at home. Read in the Prophet that Dad is getting fired? It's always lovely to hear about these things personally.

Also, the Harpies are doing brilliantly, which means that it's looking all the more likely that someone will owe me a Galleon by the end of the season!

How's work, Dad? Just you keep up the good work, protecting us filthy blood traitors and Muggle-lovers! The Prophet's mad, and everyone with sense can see that.

Hope that Mrs. Finnieston isn't driving you too crazy Mum! Just remember, just because she brings those fancy cakes to your book club doesn't mean she's in charge.

Marty, how's school? I finished that book you loaned me and I'm sending it back to you, have a look at my notes if you want. I thought the chapter about the moon was good, but you should read Barson's book, it's on my top shelf, and I'll let you have it for a loan if you promise to write and tell me what you think.

Has Marcus written? How is he doing? Hope everything is going well with his job, and tell him, if he writes, that he's a terrible brother for not writing to me more often. For all he knows, I could be suffering from some terminal disease and on my deathbed and he'd be off swanning around in some foreign country, not caring.

Tell him all of that, and make sure he feels bad.

Anyway, everything's good with me and hope it's the same for all you.

Love,

Marlene

She read the letter over a few times, thinking that it was probably okay to send. She hadn't mentioned Hogwarts too directly, and although she had made references to the fact that she was away from home, she thought it was innocuous enough to be okay. The last thing she wanted to do was upset Martin, but she also didn't want to go an entire term without hearing from him or the rest of her family. She folded the letter and put it in her pocket, before heading out of the common room and to the owlery.

It was strange to walk through the hallways of Hogwarts with no one else present, and in the daytime. She wasn't exactly a stranger to nocturnal sojourns around the castle, but the fact that she was allowed to be here took quite a lot of the fun out of the situation. A bit of her thought that she ought to have taken Herbology with most of her friends, and had her free period at the same time they did, but then she wouldn't have been able to gloat as they headed off to the greenhouses and she headed off to sit around and do nothing.

The Owlery would have been a nice place to be, it was rarely busy, it was high up and the views were beautiful. All in all, it would have been a brilliant place to spend a free period, if it weren't for the smell. So many birds in any space were bound to result in a certain odour, but the small tower, even with the rigorous magical cleaning that went on, smelt powerfully and perennially of birds.

She didn't have an owl of her own, the family owl had always made her a bit nervous and she hadn't ever felt inclined to get a pet when she came to Hogwarts. Despite their usefulness, it was their beady eyes and their sharp beaks that made her uncomfortable. She would have never admitted this to anyone, it didn't exactly fit with her preferred image of herself as tough and capable.

It wasn't as if she was properly scared of them, she just tended to get a little skittish around them.

As she reached the top of the steps, an owl flew out of the door at speed and nearly sent Marlene tumbling back down the stairs. She recovered her composure and set about finding one of the schools owls that was ready to take her letter. After almost getting her hand bitten by several recently-returned, grumpy owls, she sent one flying out the window, glad to be rid of it. Quickly getting out of the Owlery, she ran back down the stairs, hoping that the smell of owls wouldn't have clung to her.

She made it back to the normal, non-owl-infested halls and walked around lazily, passing the occasional open classroom and enjoying the fact that she wasn't supposed to be in any of them.

She supposed that she ought to spend some time studying, that being the reason behind these free hours. She spent a moment standing in the hall wondering whether to do the responsible thing and go to the common room to study, or go outside and use the closing days of summer to their full advantage.

She had almost reached the entrance hall, thinking that she could find a comfortable, sunny spot near the greenhouses from which to taunt her friends, when she heard voices drift up towards her. She wasn't particularly surprised, it was a busy place, Hogwarts, and even in the morning, it was never entirely silent. It wasn't until she was on the stairs that she picked out that one of the voices belonged to the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. The other she couldn't give a name to, but she could hear enough of their conversation to understand that something bad had happened, something that she was probably going to hear about in the Daily Prophet and in the conversations over the tables at breakfast.

"There's no doubt, Albus, it was a murder, and anyone who say's otherwise is either lying or stupid."


End file.
